We were looking forward to a warm evening in Singapore listening to Bob Dylan. We had just arrived and decided to grab a bite. Standing at the tail end of the queue we were spotted by an interviewer.

A friend in our group agreed to answer the questions.

Here is where the validity of the survey came in question.

This was a pen and paper questionnaire. We could barely hear what was being said let alone make choices between different options being shouted at us by the hard working interviewer

We had just arrived at the concert and were hardly in a position to comment on which act we enjoyed the most or which retail outlet we liked the most

People at the concert were tweeting constantly. A pen and paper survey at a concert like this felt like turning up in your black suit for a pool party.

New age methods of conducting research like online research, social media based research etc. Are fast catching up. But the client/ research company seemed to have missed the boat on this one. I wonder why.

It would have been better to have people respond to a survey on iPad or incentivized people to visit a website or to twitter about it (check out how people e.g. Martha Stewart use their twitter account very successfully to get some quick feedback). I am sure people at the concert would have been happy to respond to some interesting tweet questions

For the time being seems like all the new snazzy methods will remain in the conference halls of market research conferences.